


At Loose Ends

by ProtoNeoRomantic



Series: I Want Another First Kiss [32]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, Awkward Conversations, Awkward Kissing, Awkwardness, Denial of Feelings, Episode: s04e03 The Harsh Light of Day, F/M, First Kiss, Giles is in denial about his sexuality, Loneliness, M/M, Sexual Tension, Xander is in denial about his sexuality, there could be a closet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-04-09 14:37:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4352711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProtoNeoRomantic/pseuds/ProtoNeoRomantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A first kiss Giles and Xander might have shared in season 4 if Anya hadn't barged in.  (4 of 7)</p>
            </blockquote>





	At Loose Ends

Giles sighed. It had been a long day. Another long day. After another long night. With yet another of those rapidly approaching. In the eight years he'd lived without Olivia in his life, truth be told he'd all but forgotten her. And now the eighteen days she'd been gone again felt like a lifetime. 'Just passing through.' Bloody Hell!

He'd told her he wanted to see her again, wanted her back in his life. Maybe he shouldn't have done that. She'd said they'd talk, and they had, half a dozen times. Briefly. There was always some reason she had to get off the phone before anything important was said.

Giles knew, within reason, that he ought to take it as a hint. But still...

Whatever, never mind about that. He needed to finish what was in front of him. To focus on the task at hand. The company at hand, such as it was. His next night alone would be long enough without starting early. He shut it down, focused, looked at what Xander was doing with the volumes he'd just handed him and, “What? No, not—for God's sake, what am I paying you for if I'm just going to have to redo everything? The way you 'help' you ought to be paying me!”

“Paying you?” Xander demanded, totally missing the extremely obvious irony. “What for? Believe me, Giles, I am not enjoying this.”

Giles didn't bother to explain. He didn't have the patience and he knew the attempt would end badly. “Well shelve them correctly, and we can finish,” he said instead.

“I don't get your crazy system,” the boy complained, getting a bit impatient himself. It took Giles the better part of a second to realize that the idiot was serious.

“My system?” he scoffed, still half incredulous, “It's called the alphabet.”

“Huh. Would you look at that.” Giles rolled his eyes, not that the boy could see them. At least he did detect a hint of ironic self-deprecation. Finally. God, he was in no mood to suffer fools gladly. All the same, he found he wasn't that eager for Xander to complete his task and leave him on his own either.

He needed a drink, Giles decided. Badly.

He'd turned to go and get a bottle and was trying to decide if it made sense to offer Xander a glass or even if it might be rude not to, when all of a sudden, he found that something very strange was happening. The young man's face was coming towards his so rapidly that he honestly wasn't sure he wasn't being attacked. When Xander's lips met his, for a split second, he still wasn't sure.

He couldn't have said that he'd made a decision to kiss back, exactly. Only that it had taken him a second or three to close his mouth properly, and that during that interval, he'd manages not to get smacked in the nose by a face... by leaning his head to one side and slightly forward, rather than by stepping back.

As the scant second(s) passed, Giles was hard pressed to say exactly how that had happened. If it seemed not unrelated to the lonely nights he'd been spending, to a thrill that ran down his spin and kept running one further bit, to the taste of another man's mouth in his, after all these years, like cigarettes—none of that mattered, Giles told himself. Because he did stop. In no more than a second or three, he did close his mouth properly. He did step back.

It must have been even more abrupt than it felt, because Xander looked startled. Confused. Embarrassed. But by the time Giles had even begun to process that look, he'd already blustered his angry, indignant demand. “Good God, Man! What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?”

The boy's huge brown eyes looked more than startled. Worse than wounded. He was terrified. He may have actually flinched. “Giles, I—” Xander began to stammer, “I didn't mean—”

Giles sighed and put his hand on Xander's shoulder, feeling his heart softened by the young man's distress. “Xander,” he said gently, almost apologetically, “I'm not gay.” It was so much kinder and less complicated than the truth. That Xander was a child, or near enough. Too near. And, Giles reminded himself forcefully, it was true. Or true enough. After all these years.

“What?” Xander seemed honestly shocked by the word that the older man had left hanging in the air. “No! I—me neither!” he insisted absurdly. “I just thought—I mean I didn't think... I'm sorry,” he concluded miserably, lowering his gaze.

Giles turned away so as not to embarrass him further. “Strangely enough,” he found himself saying, contrary to that purpose, “I was just about to offer you a drink.”

“A drink?” Xander repeated doubtfully. “As in...” Somehow he made the idea sound even less advisable than it probably was. As though it might be a near occasion of sin. As though it might have been intended as such. And there was that thrill again. Down the spine and a bit further. Now in the company of it's old, familiar cohorts, fear and guilt.

“Or perhaps not,” Giles agreed, feeling foolish. “You've... done enough for the day,” he added pulling his wallet out and fumbling in it for the money he'd promised, holding it out to be snatched shame-facedly away. “I'll take care—erm that is I'll... finish this up on my own.” The phrasing was not as bad as it might have been, but bad enough. Thank god the boy was so thick that—oh dear God! What a ridiculous thought. As ridiculous as the fact that he had actually glanced down in a certain general direction while thinking it.

“Thanks,” Xander mumbled. But then he didn't leave. Didn't turn to leave. He just stood there. Barely at arms length. Looking embarrassed. But not at all eager to be gone.

It was a bad idea. It was a terrible idea. It would end badly. Giles knew that. Any fool could see that. Even Xander.

But still... “Of course, we still could have that drink,” Giles pointed out.

Xander licked his lips. Literally he licked them. Nervously. But still... “Yeah,” he said. “We could do that.”


End file.
